TY - BOOK AU - Bjarkman,Peter C. TI - Fidel Castro and baseball: the untold story SN - 9781538110300 PY - 2019///] CY - Lanham PB - Rowman & Littlefield KW - Castro, Fidel, KW - Baseball KW - Cuba KW - History KW - Sports and state N1 - Includes bibliographical references and index; A Rationale; Part I: The Myths; 1 "History Will Absolve Me"; 2 Baseball's Most Outrageous Myth; 3 The Infamous "Barbudos" Game; Part II: The Transformation; 4 Sugar Barons and Sugar Kings, and the Death of Cuba's Professional Baseball; 5 The Grand Socialist Baseball Experiment; 6 The Other Big Red Machine and Cuba's Dominance of International Baseball; Part III: The Legacy; 7 The Fictional Personas of Fidel Castro; 8 The Cuban Baseball Defectors Phenomenon; 9 The Ultimate Collapse of Cuban Baseball; Notes N2 - Baseball has been as much of a national pastime to Cuba as it has to the U.S., due in no small part to Fidel Castro's love of the game. This book chronicles the central role Castro played in transforming the sport from professional to amateur status in the small island country, which has produced dozens, if not hundreds, of baseball stars ER -